Preparation of plastic materials of high stability with electrically conductive properties has been a major goal of the plastic and electronics industry for some time. Such a plastic product would, for example, revolutionize the battery powered electric motor industry, such as in the automotive field, by making light weight batteries of high storage capacity available. In such batteries the lead plates would be replaced with a relatively light weight plastic material, making long range electric powered automobiles a reality.
Such light weight plastics with electrical conductive properties would also be beneficial in solar to electrical conversion equipment and provide equipment of far lighter weight. Such plastics would find a myriad of uses in many varying types of electrical equipment or in components thereof.
The production of isolatable films of poly(fluoroacetylene) or poly(difluoroacetylene) by the basic dehydrofluorination of poly(vinylidene fluoride) or poly(trifluoroethylene) containing polymers has not been reported in the literature.
A number of experimentors have proposed such dehydrofluorination but have failed to achieve such dehydrofluorinated polymers. For examples, in a brief report by McCarthy and Dias [Chem. & Eng. News. Sept. 5, 1983, p. 26 and Preprints of the Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering, 49, 574 (1983)] the authors speculated that poly(vinylidene fluoride) would undergo dehydrofluorination when treated with aqueous caustic using a phase transfer catalyst. The authors isolated a polymer containing ketone groups after treatment with aqueous sulfuric acid.
In U.S. Pat. No. 2,857,366 that issued Oct. 21, 1956 to Middleton, monofluoroacetylene was prepared by thermal decomposition of monofluoromaleic anhydride and monofluoroacetylene polymers prepared therefrom. Such a process is expensive, dangerous, and is limited to monofluoroacetylene.
In Japanese Patent Jpn Kohai Tokkyo Koho JP No. 58 59,208 [83 59,208] April 3, 1983 by Mitsubishi Chemical Industries Co., Ltd. (Chem. Abstr. 99, 140600q 1983) poly(difluoroacetylene) was prepared by the polymerization of difluoroacetylene monomer in tetrahydrofuran solution at 0.degree. C.
The process of the present invention merely removes HF from a wide variety of existing, commercially available, fluorine substituted polymers in a relatively inexpensive treatment with a basic solution. No catalyst is required for the process to proceed at commercial rates, although such catalysts might be economically beneficial for some conversions.